My father has simultaneously been a surprisingly small presence in my fiction and an overwhelming one. Small because I haven't written too many stories that are expressly linked to him, which is odd because most of what I've published are short stories. Overwhelming because I've spent an enormous amount of time working on novels that revolve heavily around fathers that resemble, in some aspect, my own.

It makes sense that the long form would be home to my psycho/spiritual encounters with my father. The long form of this labyrinth drew me in, didn't it? I couldn't wrestle with him sufficiently in essays, so I had to write this book. I couldn't wrestle with him sufficiently in short stories, so I have to write novels. 

Whether or not they ever get published is (after desperately wanting to publish novels for almost two decades) starting to matter less and less to me. It's the wresting that counts. Like Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis, except with a different ending: me and my father both saying "okay, you had enough? Me too."  

And then we walk on, going about with our lives. Or our deaths, I suppose. 

1. GOING BELLY UP
2. MURDERER
3. ANTHONY'S MOVIE
4. 32 LB. MANILA
5. NOVEL FATHERS